Magic, the awareness and beingness of magic, comes in stages to folks -- if it comes at all. When does a person become aware of the existence of magic, that there actually might be such a thing? When does a person choose to believe that magic is actually real? And when does a person accept that magic for themselves -- as a part of themselves?

Right now, we're starting a celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Harry becomes aware of the existence of something different ... and his whole world changes.

This happens in many books, in many series of wonderful books. Think about where the awareness of magic begins, when it is accepted as possibly true and real, and when (and if) a person accepts it for themselves -- as shown in one of your favourite books.

Portray, either with words or with pictures, the stages of awareness, belief and acceptance. Tell us of the book, the author and the character and what stage they are encountering (and what is happening if it is a graphic).

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You are also welcome to write about, or portray through a graphic, someone who encounters magic, any of the stages, and utterly rejects it. Yes, that does happen. So I guess that could be considered Stage (or Option) 4.

I thought of many different books to use for this, and I finally decided on the Shadowhunters series by Cassandra Clare, specifically, the first book, City of Bones. Now while Shadowhunters does not use magic perse, Jace (or maybe it’s Alec) goes into this explanation of what mundanes believe magic to be and what it really is, I’m going to focus on magic as an event of change rather than courses of action. I'm putting most of this in spoiler tags just in case because I am spoiling the first two chapters of this book.

I will be looking at Clary Fray, a fifteen year old, (“I’ll be sixteen on Sunday”), girl who suddenly realizes that something is not the way it seems in her family. Her mother refuses anything that has to do with the magical world of fairy tales. Clary says that she has the most normal mother in the world. That is until Clary goes to this club known as Pandemonium and sees three boys and a girl, all around her own age, fighting. One of the boys, who Clary discovers later on to be called a Shadowhunter, is about to kill the boy with blue hair, who Clary finds out later to be a demon, and she yells to stop him. The three shadowhunters are shocked that a mundane can see them.

Clary has already told her friend Simon to get a bouncer, but when Simon and the bouncer arrives, Clary realizes that her best friend and the other man only see her in the room. The three shadowhunters are invisible to them.

At this point, I think Clary is confused by what is going on. Maybe she is sick or something, but I think there is this curiosity about Jace, the one shadowhunter, and his two friends. She begins to ask Luke, a friend of her mother’s, what he would do if he saw things that others couldn’t. He never gets the chance to answer.

Clary starts to question things to Simon about her mother. She knows nothing of her mother’s past. At this time, Clary begins seeing even more weird things including a strange looking man coming from her neighbor’s apartment. When she meets up with Jace again, who she presumes is stalking her, he explains more to her and about how she has the Sight, but he does not understand how because she’s a mundane.

Clary is now fully aware of this world whether she is accepting it as true or not. Either way, she knows something's not right, and whatever it is, she is certain right now, that she does not want to be apart of it. Little does she know, that this awareness is about to change her world forever.

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Continuing on with the story is when Clary accepts this world as true and real. I have drawn a graphic to show the things that cause her to believe this for certain.

In this graphic you'll see a healing rune (Jace actually uses a mendelin rune which is similar), the Institute, and a ravener demon which Clary stabs and kills. When Clary meets Hodge, Jace tells about how the rune would have killed her if she had been a mundane so she had to have shadowhunter blood in her. She also had the ability to see and kill a ravener demon which Hodge agreed was not an ordinary feat. There's also a stele depicted in the picture which is the weapon of shadowhunters. Jace uses this to make the rune on Clary's arm. The institute also has a glamour on it so it looks like a run down church to mundanes. To those with the Sight, they will see a magnificent cathedral. As the chapters continue, Clary easily understands that she is not normal, and now she has another reason to find her mother. She has so many questions to ask her about this world and if she was aware.

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I think Clary begins to accept this new world as real and a part of her when she and Jace go back to Clary’s home. Her neighbor, Dorothea, is aware of what has gone on, and Jace talks to her. Dorothea then reads Clary’s tea leaves and discovers that she is unable to read her cup, that the images are confusing. They start talking about the possibility of a spell blocking Clary’s memories. Clary outright refuses that that’s the answer, and when Dorothea reveals to Clary her mother’s secret, that her mother was a shadowhunter like Jace, Clary once more refuses to believe it. After more information is passed from Jace to Dorothea and they discover the portal, Clary realizes that it’s all true. Her mother wanted to leave the night before but wouldn’t leave without her. That’s why she never used the portal to get away. Clary is now completely into this world of shadowhunters and downworlders (of which do use magic), and jumps through the portal which begins her journey and her life in learning about the clave.

There’s also this small moment later on when Clary is talking to Alex once they rescue Simon from the vampires. Alec calls her a mundane, but Clary has seen enough and had it confirmed enough to where she replies, “No I’m not. I’m Nephilim-- just like you.”

Shiloh Adlar, Seventh Year, Prefect, RQT Co-Captain"Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world." -Voltaire